The Data-Sharing Reverb
Bonus Monday TLL supplement. My newsletter on data-sharing Friday generated some interesting feedback, especially on LinkedIn, so I thought, in the interest of fairness and completeness, I’d share what people said, specifically those that disagreed with my contention. Here’s the original post if you missed it Friday.
“Everyone talks data, data, data, but in a field as fragmented as logistics, the underlying issue is data access and accuracy. And if the ‘plumbing’ infrastructure is bad (or non-existent), the data itself is effectively worthless.”
- Chris Torrence, EVP of strategic partnerships, Optimal Dynamics
“Data has definable value. Talking about ‘sharing’ it without serious qualifiers? Witness a major airplane manufacturer wanting their suppliers to share their production schedule data with them and their logistics providers, so that plane assemblies at their plant can be optimized (physical space in assembly facility is limited at best). They refused, because that data is incredibly valuable. Seeing ‘at capacity’ supply plants would have exposed suppliers' own production delays to penalties & loss of valuable supply contracts. In the meantime, the assembler also refused to share their production schedules with their logistics providers for fear that if they get hacked, an all too frequent event, it would expose the assembler to potential lawsuits from their final customers for promising one delivery date, but clearly not being able to meet it (an old normal in plane manufacturing). And let's not mention the value of that data to their fierce competitor. So, the data can be precisely valued in revenues lost, profits shaved, losses exposed too early,.. That makes your example of shippers happily sharing their procurement needs a ‘nice in theory, not so good for business.’ Can the trust be built without sharing data?”
- Kris Kosmala, strategic advisor, BunkerMetric
“This is the foundation of public private data collaboration at any #portcommunitysystem or #maritimesinglewindow where data collaboration is based upon data orchestration and data governance for the common good at port communities as recently introduced by IAPH and World Bank report on accelerating digitalization across the maritime supply chain.”
- Pascal Olivier, president, maritime street
“When product makers share best practices for sustainable manufacturing, it truly demonstrates leadership for the environment and reducing carbon. Sharing data and innovation raises the bar for everyone.”
- Gloria Adeboi, senior strategic account director, Digimarc
“Sharing data is great in theory but tell that to your lawyer and he or she will start reaching for the Xanax. Like Western Global Airlines shared their flight data with a forwarder who then used it to sue them. Many boasts of entities holding masses of data but they don't have the knowledge or vision for its usage and thus just sits static on their website telling people yesterdays news and moving or linking nothing.”
- Nick Coverdale, founder, NVO2NVO
“Sharing data in an ‘interoperable way’ that creates value is much like the relationship between knowledge and wisdom.”
- Eric Lindberg, e-commerce product manager, Maersk
“I recognize your point that people think their data is more valuable than it is and put a high price tag on it. Remarkable is that very often the same do not want to pay or find the data of others always too expensive. Still some learnings to do here. I am convinced that those that get first across this hurdle will get the returns.”
- Nico Wauters, CEO, T-Mining
“I believe that data itself has a value, but you're probably right that it's overestimated. Data asymmetry (i.e. the difference in data available to different parties) however I believe does however have a much greater value as it can be exploited by one party at the expense of others.”
- Jonathan Gardiner, enterprise architect, Linfox
“‘Data only has utility when it is shared?’ Either I do not understand what you mean or you and Nick don't.... My data is invaluable to me, first and foremost.’”
- Dimitris Servis, software development manager, Autoform Development
“I believe monetization is really hard. So far data mainly helps efficiency. As an actor in the supply chain, your own data helps your own efficiency and can help others. So helping yourself is actually your own job, those not using their own data to get better, only have themselves to blame. On the subject of data to share with others, it becomes more exciting. How to monetize the efficiency gain of your neighbor in the chain, whom your data can help? I did like the Nxtport concept in Antwerp, where the data owner decides whether he provides data to another party and whether for free or against a charge. Maybe something we can learn from some of the ideas on the social media front, where there has been the thought to have people own their own data grant access to it, in return for benefits. The issue in the supply chain is only, that most of the data belongs to the one at the beginning or at the end of the chain and we have a lot of actors in between, needing it.
There is the other concept, that the data would move with the cargo, e.g. with a token or an intelligent tracker, based on which everyone in the chain can add data or pull information from the cargo itself, thereby improving efficiency across the chain. However, information remains power and each party in the chain is serving another party in some form of contractual relationship and every master wants to maintain control of his servant.”
- Ruben Huber, founder, OceanX Network